Tag Archives: Game

Dallas Cowboys need you more than ever

Jason Whitten

Let’s face it, this isn’t a great season for the Cowboys and it’s just not looking good for Super Bowl dreams. Going into tonight’s game against the New York Giants with a 1-4 record just hurts to think about. But, with Rangers fever running rampant, maybe some of that winning spirit will transcend over to Cowboys Stadium. The Giants are coming off a three-in-a-row winning streak but we hear some buzz on the Interwebs that the Cowboys are favored for tonight. Time to cash in on those miracles we’ve been praying for.

Over at Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher is saying what we uncouth LGBT bloggers of dissent have been saying all along — the cozy relationship between the HRC and the Obama administration serves to primarily to boost Democratic party interests ahead of policy advances for the LGBT community.

Michael Petrelis made this observation about the Valerie Jarrett “lifestyle choice flap:

On Wednesday when Jarrett’s comments roiled the gay community and progressive bloggers, thousands of words were spilled from all sides about her remarks, but America’s largest gay Democratic advocacy org, the HRC, had not a peep to say about it all. Of course, no sane person would expect HRC, after slavishly avoiding even the mildest and meekest bit of criticism against the Obama administration’s screwing of the gay community without a rubber or any lube, to issue a rebuke to Jarrett. She is after all, a Democrat and HRC executives would rather walk barefoot on glass than slam a Democrat.

Jane echoed the same sentiment below.

The much greater problem is that the comments do reveal Jarrett to be unfamiliar with the discourse in the LGBT community for the past 40 years. Which doesn’t make her a leper either – it’s hard to be up on the crosscurrents of every community all the time. The problem is that Jarrett is ultimately in charge of LGTB relations at the White House. Brian Bond, the LGBT liaison and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, reports directly to her.

Josh Gerstein writes today that Rahm Emanuel was the one in the White House who “sought to avoid a showdown with the military over the issue.” As Obama was making critical decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan, he “didn’t want the process derailed by the culturally freighted gays-in-the-military fight.”

So when White House senior staff were discussing how to proceed on DADT, who was the one tasked with representing the concerns of the LGTB community? Who answered Rahm on their behalf? Ultimately in the White House food chain, that was Jarrett.

And once again, this brings us back to the problem of the veal pen. The White House chooses “friendly” groups who won’t force them into uncomfortable positions to represent the concerns of various constituencies. The Center for Biological Diversity isn’t invited to the Tuesday Common Purpose meetings, the Sierra Club is. If choice groups want to express their concerns to the White House, they have to go through NARAL’s Nancy Keenan. And when the White House wants to interact with LGBT groups, they communicate with (and through) the HRC.

Which is why it’s extremely troubling that the HRC goes after Republican Joe Buck for his comments on “lifestyle choice,” but doesn’t speak up when Jarrett does the same. I agree that Buck uses the words with the same intent as Tony Perkins – to demean gay people and justify his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s much, much worse than anything Jarrett did. But Joe Buck isn’t in charge of anything.

…HRC covers Obama’s left flank. They are the principal communicators with the White House, and they’re not communicating. They use their clout and resources to marginalize LGTB activists who criticize the White House, branding them as “extreme” and “irrational” within the community. They clearly see their roles as Democratic operatives who insulate the White House from the heat being applied at the grassroots level, and use LGBT issues to advance the Democratic Party’s agenda.

When the progressive allies of our community (who are dealing with the failures of this administration to properly address myriad issues) are blogging about how rank and blatant the LGBT shell game is that is going on, it really is game over. Joe and Co. at HRC have pulled the wool over the eyes of no one (save the die-hard Obama supporters) during these last two years.

And this is why we have written criticism about this WH and Gay Inc. on the Blend at length and in detail for quite some time. What is extremely trying is having to deal with apologists who want to, in advance, blame the messenger for reduced turnout at the polls or suppressing voter interest.

Ahem — it’s the actions of those purportedly working on our behalf in the WH and lobbying the Hill that have let us down. Discussing those shortcomings on this blog has always been accompanied by calls to vote, to go out and support pro-equality officials running for office — and to keep the gAyTM closed for organizations that aren’t doing their jobs and holding feet to the fire of those in the White House who are obstructionists. You’d think that for all of the millions HRC pulls in each year it would at least educate Jarrett and other people of influence who are woefully out of touch with the problems we face out here.

HRC continues to churn out nice press releases and e-blasts, and focus on NOM and other non-legislative matters, hoping to distract from the very fact that its DADT repeal strategy has failed; we’re left with only the courts moving the ball forward, and a Senate that has no chance of passing the weakened measure in the Def Auth bill that doesn’t even stop the discharges. ENDA is dead for this year, DOMA’s going nowhere (other than becoming an issue because of DADT).

What we’ve pointed out is that the system is broken – not that we don’t need a HRC, but that the leadership has failed, and when that happens in the real world, heads roll, there’s a shakeup within, and those who are working at the ground level have to have their morale restored by seeing assertive leadership that will challenge the White House. The question I always think about is this clear ambivalence we see – does HRC believe the LGBT community has clout or not– which is it? Going by what we’ve learned, through leaks and reporting by the LGBT media, it’s not clear.

The WH certainly wouldn’t know that we’re anything other than we’re an ATM; no threats are made. We don’t even know if HRC believes it could marshal a serious threat that the WH would take seriously. So it’s back to the niceties said at the annual dinner, the invites to the next social function that takes precedence. We’re left with the goose egg on the big ticket items and some appreciated, but almost all non-permanent Cinderella Crumbs as a consolation prize.

Does the HRC board believe in accountability and performance? This year presents a challenge — if they’ve been paying attention at all. There are really “no excuses” left, to use a phrase appropriated by HRC for its campaign from The Dallas Principles to sell more T-Shirts. It’s always about smoke and mirrors to make it look like something politically fierce is going on. Of course there’s nothing wrong if something is actually going on, but watching the back-patting, for instance, regarding the back-channel compromising on DADT to save it from complete death is the symptom of the problem. No fear, no gain. Ask the NRA. Pam’s House Blend – Front Page

TIP #1: If you get a pop filter for your microphone, then your voiceover’s plosives will not explode in the viewers’ ears. Blue Microphones makes a good one.

TIP #2: If you actually read the Varnum decision through an objective lens and think a little more critically about the independent judiciary’s role in American governance, you might see that the seven Iowa Supreme Court justice’s unanimous decision in favor of marriage equality was not “against the will of the people,” but rather in favor of protecting people from unconstitutional bias. It didn’t “make law”: It protect everyone’s right to live under it. Civilly.

TIP #3: If you tone down the fear music just a little bit, future civil rights documentarians will have a much harder time inserting your fear-mongering ad into their cinematic look backs at un-American bias, making your unique role in stifling equality less shorthanded for your grandkids’ consumption.

TIP #4: Dead turkeys, while found on the dinner forks of many, may not be the best political visual. Especially when your team is undeniably in the aggressor seat, gunning for the domestic game that you’ve personally determined does not deserve to fly.

TIP #5: Saying you are “for freedom” does not make it so:

No need to tip us for this crucial advice, IFF. Your failure at this costly, dangerous, anti-civic campaign will be enough of a payback.

“The 2009 survey of 7,261 middle and high school students found that at school nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students experienced harassment at school in the past year and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation. Nearly a third of LGBT students skipped at least one day of school in the past month because of safety concerns.”

“We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled,” Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman told the Post. Cushman worried over the public school system’s portrayal of same-sex partnerships as normal and voiced concerns that Christian viewpoints would be interpreted as bigotry.

This is the Pacific Justice Institute’s Brad Dacus, responding to his organization’s defeated attempt to force Attorney General Jerry Brown and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to defend Prop 8:

“People on the left and right should both be mourning the fact that the attorney general and the governor are reneging on their oaths of office

“That’s like having a football team and saying it’s your strategy to not show up for the game. That’s not strategy, that’s surrender” [SOURCE]

Only problem for Dacus? His “team” is playing a game that fundamentally breaks the rules! There already was a match: Team Bias fouled, Team Equality called them out on it, and Referee Walker sided with the rules that were provided to the game by our nation’s governing documents. Now they who wish to keep all gay people on the sidelines are trying to save face, requesting another chance on the playing field to try to adjust the playbook ever so slightly, in hopes that the same basic runs and passes and kicks and goals will for some reason deliver a winning score. But Coaches Brown and Schwarzenegger are simply saying, “Nuh uh, sorry — you don’t get to schedule a scrimmage here, there, and anywhere simply because you’re obsessed with a game that you were never qualified to play! Not if you expect us to show up, you don’t.”

Surrender? No, no, Bradley. Try: Refusing to surrender to your side, which has been playing political and cultural football with LGBT lives and loves for longer than any of us care to remember!

Dan Hampton, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman who now apparently works as an analyst for the MSG Network, used a homophobic metaphor to disparage the Dallas Cowboys on the air over the weekend.

“The Cowboys think they’re Clint Eastwood,” Hampton says in the above video clip. “They’re more of the Brokeback variety if you know what I’m talking about.”

Hampton’s co-host responds by saying, “No I don’t, please explain.”

Instead of explaining the Brokeback comment, Hampton goes on to make an even more offensive one. Referring to an upcoming game in which the New Orleans Saints host the Minnesota Vikings, Hampton says, “The Vikings need to go down there and hit that town like Katrina.” (Video is below.)

What an idiot. Let’s hope MSG cans Hampton by the close of business Tuesday. If they do, we’re sure it will be mostly because of the Katrina comment. After all, homophobia is probably encouraged on these stupid shows to boost ratings.

UPDATE: Hampton has apologized for the Katrina comment on Pro Football Weekly, but not for the homophobic remark about the Cowboys.